Years ago, while I was first studying what Christ Jesus cited as the two great commandments, it struck me that the math might be off (see Matthew 22:35-40). Didn’t the master Christian give three commandments – love God, love your neighbor, and love yourself?
The first two many readily agree with and even strive to practice. But love yourself? Isn’t that egotism? Self-centeredness?
Jesus’ categorical call to love God, love one another, and love ourselves may seem as unrealistic to a self-deprecating mentality as it is to self-absorbed thought. And yet these three highest calls to action are not only mutually binding but mutually fulfilling. For if we strive to love God heart, soul, and mind, we must come to know God. And to know God is to love Him, urging on the desire to discover our own God-given identity and nature as His child. From this unfolds our native ability to love our fellow beings.
Jesus taught that love is not a reward distributed by God on the basis of worthiness. God’s love is so pure, so opulent, so present – it’s about God being Love itself and about His “free gift” (Romans 5:15) of love to all He has caused to be. But this love needs to be recognized, accepted, and realized in our lives for us to truly love ourselves and others.
So, we might ask, if Christ Jesus is humanity’s Savior and Way-shower, how did he love himself?
Interestingly, Jesus didn’t speak of loving himself except in teaching about God or in meeting the needs of others. The healings he accomplished in his Father’s name made the people listen to what he had to say. His first recorded reference to himself came when he was a boy of 12: “Wist ye not that I must be about my Father’s business?” (Luke 2:49). And later, after he was christened by John the Baptist, the heavens parted, and God said of Jesus, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased” (Matthew 3:17).
At that point, Jesus didn’t yet have the record we now know of healings, moral redemptions, multitudes fed, and resurrections. Yet in front of many witnesses – most of whom had come to John the Baptist to be cleansed of their sins – God said unmistakably that Jesus was His Son and that he was loved and approved. But did God love only Jesus? In fact, Jesus was the supreme evidence of God’s love for all. And we could say that God is “well pleased” with every individual in their true identity, then, now, and always.
Later, toward the end of Jesus’ ministry, nearly the same words from God were heard by Peter, James, and John when their teacher was transfigured before them on a mountain: “This is my beloved Son: hear him” (Luke 9:35). One Bible version translates “hear” in this verse as “obey.” Soon, the receivers of this heavenly message about Jesus were each impelled, as never before, to accept their own status as God’s child – and to obey Christ, the spiritual idea of God, divine Love, in doing the compassionate healing works that Jesus had done.
The love of God does not beget self-centeredness but awakens us to recognize our true, God-given identity in the light of infinite Love, which excludes no one. Acceptance of our status as God’s loved sons and daughters would be impossible were we, in truth, just human. But the one man who was wrong about nothing promised all who followed his way – in knowing and demonstrating this reality of loving God, neighbor, and true self – that they could do the works he did.
Growing up a twin in a small town, I often saw myself as half of a whole. Though my sister and I attended different colleges, I felt nearly invisible and became withdrawn and self-critical. A turning point came when I read the Christian Science textbook, “Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures” by Mary Baker Eddy, cover to cover. As the book’s sublime truths, founded on the teachings of Jesus, took root in my thought, it occurred to me that God not only made me but knew and loved me. And that this was true for everyone. Having discovered God’s love for me (and all), I grew in confidence and academic success and was even able to help friends and others through prayer on many occasions.
As I discovered, learning to love ourselves isn’t selfish or exclusionary; understood spiritually, it is key to loving more expansively. We truly can’t obey one of these commandments without obeying the others, since by its nature, the Love that is God, as well as the love from God, is as boundless as it is ever present. And our Father-Mother’s allness assures us that every individual has their source in Love and, in truth, cannot help being lovable and loving.
Adapted from an editorial published in the March 23, 2026, issue of the Christian Science Sentinel.
